Re-sealable packages are often used in the food packaging industry to store packaged food products (e.g.: chips, beef jerky). Food packaging often involves the steps of drying and adding preservatives to the food product, placing the food product in a plastic package, flushing the package with nitrogen or a similar inert gas to remove moisture, and vacuum sealing the package to remove oxygen and any other trapped gases. These steps can be completed in an automated process as a part of a food packaging production line. Such vacuum-sealed packages can typically have a re-sealable seam or oxygen and moisture absorbers (e.g.: silica gel packets) to maintain a hermetic seal after a permanent seal is broken to gain access to the contents of the package.
A predetermined threshold for moisture and oxygen often exists to maintain freshness of the packaged food, and if these thresholds are exceeded, pathogenic growth (e.g. aerobic bacteria, fungi etc.) can occur in the packaged food product, leading to food spoilage or diminished shelf-life of food products. It is often the case that an article of the food product can get trapped in the permanent seal during the automated process of vacuum sealing the package, which may lead to a poor seal and, the possibility of food spoilage. An exemplary system and method to inspect the integrity of a sealed package can include randomized visual inspection of the package by a user. Such systems, however, do not offer a fast and accurate assessment of the integrity of the seal.